He was a domestic specialist who only dominated in England due to poor opposition. His biggest competitor was Arsene Wenger for crying out loud. He would've been fired long ago at any of the big European giants with his subpar performance in the Champions League.
shareI'm a Liverpool fan and even I would say that Ferguson was not overrated. As for only being a success domestically, he also won two Champions Leagues as well as getting to a further two champions league finals only to be beaten both times by the best club in the world at that time, Barcelona. He won the cup winners cup (European trophy) and the Club World Cup. So i think you are being a tad unfair.
shareHe never once dominated a Champions League campaign in his entire career. Both wins were due to last minute goals or a penalty shootout. Even so, 2 Champions Leagues in 25 years with the resources he had is not impressive, and even less impressive with the nature of the wins.
shareDon't agree
shareLook at Guardiola and Mourinho, 2 of the greatest managers since Ferguson, both so far have only won the 2 Champions Leagues too, and they've been competing in the competition over 10, or in Mourinho's case almost 20 years, with the resources they've had at their disposal. Goes to show how difficult it is to win the CL. You could argue in Pep's case he's struggled to win one without having the best ever player in his team.
Ferguson managed to build one successful team after another, something neither of those 2 managers has done yet.
It's worth pointing out that what he did with Aberdeen was a hell of an achievement in itself, let alone what he went on to do with United.
Overrated? Nope. Best manager of all time.
Look at Guardiola and Mourinho, 2 of the greatest managers since Ferguson, both so far have only won the 2 Champions Leagues too, and they've been competing in the competition over 10, or in Mourinho's case almost 20 years, with the resources they've had at their disposal.
Ferguson managed to build one successful team after another, something neither of those 2 managers has done yet.
Many of the years at the beginning of his tenure at United they weren't even in the CL, so it's inaccurate or unfair to say he won 2 in 25 years and use that as a stick to beat him with. Both Pep and Mourinho started their managerial careers with teams that were competing in the CL, so that will of course help, and despite equalling Fergie's number of trophies in a shorter time, the point still stands, they haven't yet amassed more than 2 or reached any other finals for that matter. Fergie got to 4 finals. For Mourinho it's 2 in 16 or 17 years and it doesn't look likely any time soon. For Pep it's 2 in a little over 10 years and those were at Barcelona when he had Messi and a contingent of Spanish players who would go on to win 3 international tournaments in a row.
Sure it's impressive to win titles in different countries but let's be honest, Pep has been at the 3 best teams in each of those countries, while Mourinho was at Madrid with Ronaldo and couldn't deliver more success than he was expected to.
Winning Champions Leagues is more luck compared to domestic titles anyway. Pep's Barcelona needed luck and a last minute equaliser to get past Chelsea when they won one of their titles, and Mourinho needed the same against United for Porto to progress and win one, so let's not pretend it's all Fergie getting lucky in the CL here. Brian Clough said in an interview that he'd rather win domestic titles than European trophies because it requires more managerial ability, and I tend to agree with him. Being able to keep rebuilding successful teams and take on the new challengers through the years (not just Wenger's Arsenal) is something you can't overlook and it's something Clough wasn't able to do himself and neither have Pep and Mourinho so far.
Could Fergie have lasted at Madrid? Given their ridiculously high standards who really knows? He reached 2 CL finals in a row with Ronaldo at United, so I'd like to think were he in Jose's shoes he'd have won 1 or 2 there too.
Many of the years at the beginning of his tenure at United they weren't even in the CL, so it's inaccurate or unfair to say he won 2 in 25 years and use that as a stick to beat him with.
and despite equalling Fergie's number of trophies in a shorter time, the point still stands, they haven't yet amassed more than 2 or reached any other finals for that matter.
Sure it's impressive to win titles in different countries but let's be honest, Pep has been at the 3 best teams in each of those countries
while Mourinho was at Madrid with Ronaldo and couldn't deliver more success than he was expected to.
Being able to keep rebuilding successful teams and take on the new challengers through the years (not just Wenger's Arsenal) is something you can't overlook and it's something Clough wasn't able to do himself and neither have Pep and Mourinho so far.
Could Fergie have lasted at Madrid? Given their ridiculously high standards who really knows? He reached 2 CL finals in a row with Ronaldo at United, so I'd like to think were he in Jose's shoes he'd have won 1 or 2 there too.
Well actually Barcelona finished 3rd in the league behind Villareal before Pep became manager, and Man City finished 4th before he joined. Bayern is the only job where he could just walk in. I know it's popular to pretend like Guardiola just walks into a finished product but that just shows a lack of knowledge. And by the way, i'm not even particularly a big fan of Guardiola, you brought him up not me. But still, i'll take him over overrated Fergie any day.
He wouldn't even dare to take on a challenge like that which is why he stayed in his safe zone at Utd where he can underperform as long as he wins domestic titles.
...where it looked like they were going to finish nowhere near the top 4. Fergie managed top 4 for 20 straight years, and won back to back titles over the course of it on many occasions. You only have to look at how Wenger struggled to replicate his success in the same time frame.
The problem with this argument is, you're using rebuilding teams within the same club as a yardstick to compare managers when it's only really applicable to Fergie. Very few managers stay at the same club for 25+ years either due to ambitiious management who want more than domestic trophies, or the manager wants to test themselves in a different league or club. Mourinho won 2 league titles with Chelsea right off the bat against Fergie no less without even settling in. Zidane won 3 Champions League titles in *less* than 3 full seasons. His first season he had to abruptly take over from Benitez mid season. Ancelotti won 3 Champions League titles with 2 different teams. Bob Paisley won 6 league titles and 3 European Cups in 9 seasons. Del Bosque won the Champions League twice in the space of 3 years and got fired. He didn't have the luxury of being at the same club for 25+ years to underachieve in Europe. There are so examples of more impressive feats in football and without the luxury that Fergie had. He is simply the most overrated manager ever.
2008 winners
2009 runners up
2011 runners up
Truth be told, had that Barcelona team not been around (very possibly the greatest team in history) United would have dominated.
2008 winners
2009 runners up
2011 runners up
Truth be told, had that Barcelona team not been around (very possibly the greatest team in history) United would have dominated.
It was very close, you muppet. Including in 2008 when Barca lost to them.
During that period only United and Inter were meaningful rivals to them.
Lmao if you think the 2009 and 2011 finals were close, I don't know what to tell you. Utd were passed off the park by Barca both times. It was boys against men.
shareConveniently you leave out the success he had at Aberdeen, winning the Scottish Prem 3 times, a competition dominated by the Old Firm then and now, and also winning the Cup Winners Cup with Aberdeen against Real Madrid.
He then continued winning in England with Manchester United, a well-supported club but in the 80’s they were a bit like Spurs are today, a team with glory in their past but failing to win much in decades, he went onto win the title with Man Utd 13 times! Before Fergie arrived they had only won the title 7 times, the likes of Everton had a better record than Man Utd!
Rebuilding Man Utd year after year to carry on winning is an amazing achievement, you also forget about Man Utd continuing to win titles in the mega rich Abramovich era, also undermining Wenger so casually is childish, his record at Arsenal was magnificent before they spent all their money on building a new stadium.
[deleted]
When Fergie retired I was having dinner with people at work and I proclaimed they will do ok with Fergies team intact, his values still instilled in the team. Then it will fall apart when the new manager starts tinkering and they wont win the league again. They are done after that.
One fellow spoke up and nearly bit my head off, said I didn't know what I was talking about and to STFU
7 leagues later and I was right. Dropped out of League races. Won a few cups against Southampton, Palace and Ajax in the finals but no leagues.
Thought I'd revisit this now that Pep has yet again underachieved in the CL this season, going out to Lyon in the quarters.
Goes to show it's not easy to win Champions Leagues for even the best managers, whether it be Fergie or Pep. Both one behind the record of 3 though, which just highlights how difficult it is further. I mean the European Cup has been going since the 50s and that's the record: 3, held by only 3 men.
As I said -
And by the way, i'm not even particularly a big fan of Guardiola, you brought him up not me. But still, i'll take him over overrated Fergie any day.
It's looking less impressive with each passing year he fails to get this City team past a CL QF. A large part of why they went out last night was down to his tactics also. I don't remember Fergie going out due to him getting the tactics badly wrong.
Anyway, I'm not trying to make this about Pep being poor, just trying to highlight that it's not easy picking up CL trophies consistently. How many should Fergie have picked up in those 21 years to prevent him from being so overrated? 6 or 7? No point calling Fergie out on it when other managers have hardly done better.
It's looking less impressive with each passing year he fails to get this City team past a CL QF.
I don't remember Fergie going out due to him getting the tactics badly wrong.
How many should Fergie have picked up in those 21 years to prevent him from being so overrated? 6 or 7? No point calling Fergie out on it when other managers have hardly done better.
Why is staying at Man United necessarily seen as the "safe" option? You could say moving from a club before going through a team's rebuild is equally a safe option. Many managers wouldn't be able to last and remain successful for that long, that's part of what makes Ferguson the great manager he is. Mourinho, Pep and others haven't done that so far.
Could Fergie go over to Germany or Spain and have success? If he was able to learn the language first then I don't see why not? Obviously he isn't multilingual like Pep is, but not knowing other languages doesn't detract from his managerial ability for me. One of the things Fergie did well is employ the right coaches under him to get the best out of a team, so he could do the same abroad.
Have any of these other top managers gone to a club as small as Aberdeen either by the way, and achieved European success? I don't think they have.
Yes they got lucky in the finals he won but you need luck in cup competitions. I dare say he'd have dominated teams too had he been managing a team as good as that Barcelona team Pep had.
You seem to think collecting CL/European Cup trophies is easier than it actually is. It obviously isn't or the record would be much higher than 3 by now in all of the 70 years it's been active for.
shush man. Even I have to admit he is one of the greatest and I support Newcastle UTD.
shareHe was a drunk clown working for a club of classless losers, why expect more?
shareThink its not really fair to make that assessment. He lost his best player, who happens to be a GOAT candidate to Real Madrid who indeed went on to win The UCL 4 times with them. The slight on Wenger is not fair either. Wenger´s record is probably even more impressive considering he never had unlimited funds and had to operate his club like a profitable business.
share